13 November 2009
Recruitment advertising over Christmas 2009 and New Year 2010

Recruitment advertising trends indicate that advertisements placed around the Christmas/New Year period rarely attract the desired number or quality of applications. We encourage you to consider carefully your staffing requirements and the timing and placement of your advertisements in the lead up to Christmas.

Please note the final day for recruitment advertising for 2009 will be as follows:

Jobs@UNSW (HR Website) and SEEK - Friday 27 November 2009
Sydney Morning Herald - Saturday 28 November 2009
The Australian (Higher Ed section) - Wednesday 2 December 2009

In view of the UNSW closedown, recruitment advertising for 2010 will resume as follows:

Friday 8 January 2010 (Jobs@UNSW website & SEEK only)
Saturday 16 January 2010 (Sydney Morning Herald)
Wednesday 20 January 2010 (The Australian - Higher Ed section)

Please contact your Faculty or Divisional HR Consultant for further information/advice, including any local submission deadlines.

18 September 2009
New Mentoring for Staff Online Toolkit

Mentoring has long been a tradition at universities, particularly in relation to academics. Mentoring provides numerous benefits such as providing practical mechanisms to advance and retain staff by enhancing their confidence and skills, while providing an opportunity for individuals to clarify their career goals and direction.

A number of recent University initiatives, such as the Performance Development Scheme and the Women’s Employment Strategy, have highlighted the need to establish more structured mentoring programs to support performance, leadership and career development opportunities for staff.

The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences introduced a structured mentoring program for staff in 2008. Sarah Maddison, Senior Associate Dean of the Faculty says the program provides a much needed staff support initiative.

"Our first cohort has just graduated, and feedback from participants has been overwhelmingly positive. Staff are feeling more supported, more connected, and we’re seeing some really tangible outcomes in the form of publications, promotions and grant applications.”

UNSW mentor, Karen Fisher, Senior Research Fellow with the Social Policy Research Centre has found her mentoring role with the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences extremely beneficial.

"Often our career path and work decisions seem intuitive or accidental, but on reflection, the successes illustrate a pattern. By working with the mentee, I was able to see these patterns and refine them in my own practice. My mentee works in an area that I'm completely unfamiliar with, so by listening to her dilemmas and working with her to resolve them, I learnt about other University management structures and relationships. “

UNSW mentee, Rod Bamford, Associate Lecturer at the School of Design Studies at COFA, says his relationship with his mentor has been stimulating and productive. It is fantastic having a mentor who is considerate and clearly focussed on the adjustments required to achieve academic goals, his perspectives have been relevant and insightful.”

Organisation & Staff Development Services, in collaboration with UNSW managers and staff, have developed the HR Toolkit: Mentoring for UNSW Staff.  The toolkit aims to provide guidance and support in the design and implementation of both formal and informal mentoring programs. The Mentoring Toolkit can be accessed on the myUNSW Home Page and is located under the Staff Development@UNSW section (lower right-hand side).

If you would like advice on establishing a formal mentoring program in your work unit, please contact Karen Lindsay (Leadership & Management Consultant, Organisation & Staff Development Services) on email k.lindsay@unsw.edu.au.

21 August 2009
The Focus on Falls

Did you know that 'Slips, Trips and Falls’ are the lead cause of injuries at UNSW and on average have accounted for over a quarter of all serious injuries over the past five years? Read about this and more in the inaugural OHS Newsletter which is a new quarterly initiative from UNSW’s OHS unit. Read here...

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30 October 2009
IT Self Service Portal

What is happening?
IT at UNSW has introduced an IT Self Service Portal for staff and students available at: https://www.servicedesk.unsw.edu.au/

Why is this happening?
The IT Self Service Portal allows you to contact UNSW IT Service Centre via web-interface. You can create your own calls (tickets) as well as check the status and update your existing ones. You can also access the Knowledge Base which contains IT-related documents with step-by-step instructions, information and ‘workarounds’ that can help solve many issues.

When is this happening?
The IT Self Service Portal will be available from Monday 2 November 2009.

What do I need to do?
To access the Self Service Portal, log in with your zID and zPass For more information on zPass, including step-by-step set up instructions, see http://www.it.unsw.edu.au/services/zpass

Who do I need to contact?
If you have any questions please contact us on the details below:

IT Service Centre
IT at UNSW
Tel: +61 2 9385 1333
Internal ext: 51333
Email: ITServiceCentre@unsw.edu.au
Website: https://www.servicedesk.unsw.edu.au/

18 September 2009
Shared Services rollout continues

• Deployment of the full desktop service for Windows (including desktop, personal files and email) is in progress for all areas targeted for 2009 which includes all Divisions and the Faculties of Medicine and Law.
• A new Desktop Service for Mac is now available and is being deployed in the College of Fine Arts.
• Staff Email rollout has been completed in the Australian School of Business, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and Faculty of the Built Environment.
• Email is live in 5 schools in the Faculty of Engineering (Petroleum, Mining, Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, Civil and Environmental, Chemical Sciences & Engineering), the School of Material Science and Engineering in the Faculty of Science and the School of Public Health and Community Medicine in the Faculty of Medicine.
• At the end of August, there were approximately 4,900 active mailboxes across UNSW

zMail update

zMail is now complete for all undergraduate and postgraduate coursework students – the zMail solution is now being developed to encompass those Alumni not in NSS. Plans are in progress to move all other users from UniMail, which is to be retired at the end of 2009. For more information on zMail see: http://www.it.unsw.edu.au/students/zmail

• A decision on a preferred vendor for the Managed Print service has been made with an announcement expected in September.
• The managed print service includes printers, photocopiers, and multifunction devices (combined printers/photocopiers/scanners) providing a consolidated service for staff and students across UNSW

• Approximately 370 servers have been decommissioned, and 90 Windows applications have been migrated across divisional units and faculties to date.
• Black Board 9 is now in production on new shared infrastructure. Blackboard 9 will replace Vista 3, which will be progressively decommissioned with full withdrawal at the end of Session1,  2010
• A central hosting capability for Linux Redhat and SuSE operating systems is now available and migrations have commenced.

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30 October 2009
Finance Information Briefings

Finance is improving systems and processes which will result in a number of changes coming into place in 2010.

As part of Finance’s commitment to supporting the UNSW community with the transition and to minimise disruption to faculties and divisions, Finance is holding a series of information briefings.

The Finance Briefings begin on Wednesday, November 11, 2009 and places must be booked in advance.

The briefings are important to attend:

• if you manage a budget
• if you are a buyer or have financial delegation
• if you are  involved in accounting
• if you manage finances within any area of the university
• if you make financial decisions for a unit regardless of its size

To book a place in a briefing session please looks at the calendar http://www.fin.unsw.edu.au/files/Misc/Briefings.pdf and find a time which suits you.

Please email your preferred date to fti@unsw.edu.au and you will receive an email to confirm your booking or to suggest an alternate session if your requested time is full.

If you have any questions about the briefings or the availability of places contact Janz Reinecke on fti@unsw.edu.au or 52758.

Finance End of Year Close-Off

The University will be closed for the Christmas break from Friday December 18, 2009 until Monday January 4, 2010.
To help Finance’s end of year close and the timely and the accurate lodgement of our 2009 Financial Statements a set of three documents has been prepared and can be accessed from the links below.
The three documents are:

• 2009 End of Year Operational Close-Off Guidelines – this outlines the dates and deadlines key processes and also includes contact details for more information
  
• EOY 2009 Templates – this file provides blank templates for some of the key areas detailed in the Close-Off Guidelines such as accruals
  
• 2009 EOY Timetable – this is a summary of the key dates in Financial Control’s End of Year calendar

Your assistance and support in meeting the tight deadlines required to meet Finance’s statutory requirements relating to the preparation of UNSW’s Annual Financial Statements is greatly appreciated.

2 October 2009
Customer Service Charter Launch

The Finance Division is committed to its customers and to providing a high level of service.

To help ensure success the Director of Finance Stephen Rees has launched a Customer Service Charter.

Stephen Rees said: “The Customer Service Charter will provide clarity to both staff and our customers as to expected levels of performance in delivering service.

“We have an excellent staff within Finance and this will help take our service to customers to the next level.”

The Charter includes expectations from every team member in the Division including seeing things from the customer’s perspective as well as communicating clearly and explaining decisions.

The quality of the Finance’s communication with customers is also a core element of the Charter.

To ensure prompt and polite service, benchmarks will be introduced as well as feedback opportunities for customers to share their experience of service.

The new charter has been created based on Finance’s behaviours, which are aligned and work alongside the UNSW behaviours.

The Finance behaviours are: enabling, professional, collaborative, teamwork, transparency, trusted adviser, customer-focused, accountable and solution focused. These behaviours underpin all the work within the Division.

To learn more: Finance Division’s Customer Charter.

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18 September 2009
Transport to and around UNSW

Prepaid Services
Since the introduction of the prepaid bus services in August 2007 the numbers travelling to UNSW have increased. Queuing and wait times at both Eddy Ave and of an evening at Anzac Pde and High St have reduced quite significantly.

There are over 7 million boardings on the pre-paid 890, 891, 892 and 895 UNSW express buses annually.

In 2007 there were 7246 passengers commuting to UNSW from Eddy Ave on a daily basis. In 2009 that number has increased to 9802 passengers.

The peak boarding times surveyed at Eddy Avenue are between 7.30am and 10.30am, carrying approximately 80% of the above numbers.

A survey conducted, during session in April 09 showed the average wait times at Eddy Ave between the following hours are:
7.30am – 8.00am        3.25 minutes
8.00am – 8.30am        7.10 minutes
8.30am – 9.00am        3.34 minutes
9.00am – 9.30am        1.08 minutes

The average time taken to board a bus when paying a cash fare is 11 seconds, while dipping a ticket takes just 3 seconds. On an average load (50 people), this can save 6 minutes on the journey and help keep the buses on time.  Sydney Buses also now permit double door loading at Eddy Ave.

Safety
A pedestrian safety fence was installed in 2007. The fence runs along Anzac Parade between Barker and High Streets. This has reduced pedestrian incidents along Anzac Parade.

A new pedestrian crossing will replace the existing pedestrian island on the corner of Forsyth Street and Gate 14 Barker Street within the next few months. The speed limit on Barker Street is to be reduced to a 40km zone.

Gate 9 has become a contentious area which RCC has targeted for works to reduce the incidents of conflict between cars, buses and pedestrians.  RCC has also advised that Gate 9 is too dangerous an intersection to allow a return of parking within the immediate area on campus.

New Services
In August 2009 a ticket dipping machine and a loading Marshal were introduced at the NIDA Anzac Parade bus stop, enabling quicker passenger loading times.

The introduction of the Metrobus prepaid service, which runs every 10 minutes during peak times, has also proven to be successful. This service operates to/from Leichhardt to Kingsford via UNSW. The Metrobus takes 20 minutes from Town Hall to UNSW.

Wolli Creek 348 service introduced April 09 to service passengers to/from Bondi Junction, UNSW, Alexandria and Wolli Creek station. This service is being heavily utilized by both staff and students.

Extra bus services for all scheduled exams are arranged with Sydney Buses for both AJC Randwick and main campus venues.  Extra buses are also provided for special events such as Open Day and Roundhouse events.

Carpooling
myUNSW Carpools was introduced in May 2009 to the university community. It is a free online carpool matching service, for both staff and students that lets you register a trip to see if you find someone in your area to share the ride with to the University. There are currently 499 registered members with 26 active pools and 50 active members. The member numbers are growing weekly.

The statistics for July 2009 show for 5 active pools there is an estimated avoidance  of 198kg of CO2 Emissions; a saving of 83 litres of petrol, saving of 50 car journeys, 13 bus journeys and 14 train journeys.

FM is currently running a competition for all new and existing members to have a chance to win a book of 10 Greater Union movie tickets for all users registered and looking to share a ride  on myUNSW Carpools! To enter visit myunswcarpools.unsw.edu.au

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